Tuesday, April 29, 2008

First Divine Skill Under Heaven

Recently, while I was walking on the street, I met an incredibly skilled pugilist. The pugilist was dressed in rags and had unkempt hair. He was clearly from the Beggar Sect, Bukit Panjang Branch. Perhaps he was even the leader of the preeminent Sect.

The pugilist stared at me, and then spoke, "To that young hero over there, I observe that you have the bone structure of a martial arts genius which is only seen once every 1000 years ! It will be a pity if you do not practice martial arts and uphold justice ! Let me transfer all my skills and internal power to you !!!".

After speaking, he grabbed me, and transferred his internal power to me. After the process was complete, the man laughed loudly, and said, "Now I have transferred all my internal power to you ! Don't underestimate this power, for I myself received all the internal power of my master, who received all the internal power of his master !!! You are now very powerful, powerful enough to defeat 2 pugilists !"

I remarked that 2 was a seemingly low number for the combined internal power of 3 generations of experts. Perhaps they were quite lousy in combat. That would also explain why they were beggars.

The master sighed, shaking his head. "You do not understand, young hero. The power transference skill is not perfect ! As power transference goes against the natural laws of the world, only 50% of the internal power is transfered, and the rest wasted ! Hence, even though power transference is an amazing skill, ultimately the maximum power attainable has an upper ceiling."

"Consider a pugilist of generation n + 1. Assuming that he is an average pugilist, his total power, X(n+1), will be X(n+1) = 1 + r * X(n), where r is the percentage of internal power transferred. For the pugilist of generation n, his power is X(n) = 1 + r * X(n-1).

Hence, the power of the pugilist in generation n + 1 is:

X(n+1) = r * ( 1 + r * X(n -1)) + 1 = (r^2) X(n-1) + r + 1

Continuing the process until the original pugilist, X(0),

X(n+1) = (r^(n+1))*X(0) + (1-r^(n+2))/(1-r)

Assuming that there are many many generations, or n large, and since r less than 1, hence,

X(n+1) = 1 / (1-r)

Since my Sect's energy transference skill transfers power at 50% loss, the power of a pugilist (assuming he trains) is 2 !"

After explaining the situation to me, the pugilist fell over and died. I was slightly saddened, since I had lost a comrade in upholding justice.

Not all was lost, however. I discovered a secret manual hidden in his rags. The manual was titled, "First Divine Skill Under Heaven", which arguably meant that it was either the most powerful skill in the world, or (inclusive or) that it was the most primitive skill in the world.

In order to ensure that everyone is also able to uphold justice, I'm sharing part of the manual here.

Manual for the First Divine Skill Under Heaven

Note : I really think that for power transference skills, there should be an attenuation factor, otherwise everyone would be extremely powerful after a few generations.